I'm a psychotherapist who's seeing a spike in election-related anxiety among my patients. Some of them are secretly voting for Trump.

Jonathan Alpert

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Jonathan Alpert — a psychotherapist and the author of "Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days" — who is seeing an uptick in anxiety among his patients regarding the 2024 presidential election. Alpert is licensed to practice in New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, so some of his patients live in hotly-contested communities in the Philadelphia and Erie areas. This year, he's hearing a range of concerns from his patients regarding both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. And even though Trump has been in the public eye as a politician for nearly a decade, Alpert said that some of patients remain "shy" Trump voters, or voters who are afraid to reveal that they're supporting the former president for myriad reasons.